Part 2 in series, continued from a previous post.

The conclusion drawn from the question: "Why won't God heal amputees?", led this website to conclude that God is imaginary.  Their argument is based on a number of assumptions that I discussed in the first article in this series.  We saw that their first assumption was not completely valid; lets look at the second assumption now.

Assumption #2: The Bible clearly commands us to pray for healing and promises that if we have faith and pray for healing, then God will heal.

Is this assumption valid?  Many Christians would say that this is true, the Bible does teach that if you have faith and ask God for healing, he will heal.  The website http://whywontgodhealamputees.com listed a number of Bible verses to support this assumption.  We'll look at the most significant of the Biblical passages relating to prayer and healing—James 5:14-15

James 5:14-15 says "Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him."

Looking at this passage closely the following can be noticed:

1. The person who is sick is not told to pray, but instead to call for the elders, the leaders of the church and they (the leaders) would pray over him.  The book of James was written around 45 AD, during this time period there are reports of a gift of healing that some apostles and church leaders had.  Could this verse be indicating that these leaders had the apostolic gift of healing?
2. "It says 'Is anyone among you sick?', not 'Is anyone among you an amputee?'!"  I actually read this on another Christian website in response to this very same question, but this is far from a valid rebuttal.  We know from the New Testament records that people who were sick, blind, lame, disfigured, and dead were healed.
3. Does this verse apply to every single Christian?  James is addressing his letter to "the twelve tribes spread abroad."  We have to be careful when assuming everything written can be applied to everyone in every context.  The time of the apostles was a special time when some men had the ability to heal through the power of God.  Today, Christian leaders do not have this ability, we go to the hospital when we are sick, not our Pastor.

So what can we gather from these two verses?  We can see that people were taught to seek the leaders for healing, and in this special time in history when Jesus has just been resurrected, when the New Testament was being revealed, many miraculous acts were being done (including healing) to demonstrate to the people that the message of the New Testament was true and that it was from God.  Part of the miraculous signs included healing of those who were blinded, disfigured and even those who were dead.  None of these healings can be explained by coincidence or science, which is precisely the evidence called for by http://whywontgodhealamputees.com and we have reliable eye-witness accounts of these miracles.

The next and obvious question would be: "So why don't we see this kind of healing today?  Why don't todays church leaders have the ability to heal?"  The number one reason for no miraculous healing today is that revelation is not being given today.  The Bible is a completed book, it is attested by the miracles and wonders done by those who penned it's pages.  Those who claim to have a new message from God in recent history have no miracles which demonstrate that their message is from God.  The signs of the apostles ceased in the 1st century after their message was confirmed.

Is Assumption #2 Invalid?

In James 5 we see that the assumption "The Bible clearly commands us to pray for healing and promises that if we have faith and pray for healing, then God will heal" is not supported.  In future posts, we'll look at the other scripture verses cited in their argument and see if they offer additional insight into prayer for the sick, lame, blind and the amputee.